I am old enough to remember a time before there were VCRs. Back then, we really did have to watch a show at the time it aired, commercials and all-- and if by chance there were two good shows on at the same time, then we'd have to pick and choose (luckily this didn't happen often, as this was also before cable and there really weren't that many shows to choose from).

When the VCR came about, it was like a whole new world. I couldn't believe that someone had actually invented such a contraption. My friend's parents bought one early on and paid close to a thousand bucks for it. We'd watch it all the time.

It took a good two years for the price of VCRs to come down, and my husband and I eventually bought a Betamax version. If you don't know what a Betamax VCR is, don't feel bad-- they went out of circulation fairly early on on. In any event, with a Betamax machine in our apartment, it was time to start renting videos. Video rental places were popping up all over the place in our town. Back the, you didn't get a free membership like you do today. No siree, we paid $19.99 for a lifetime membership (hey, I wonder if I can get a refund?). Anyway, it was great, renting all my old favorite movies. By then we had cable, too, so my husband, who was a real movie buff, starting taping movies off of cable so we could watch them whenever. Over time, he accumulated quite a collection of poor quality videos.

Then along came the video club. Just like the record clubs of the past, the video club was a mail order club in which you could get a bunch of tapes up front with the agreement to buy a specified number of selections within the next two years. We joined up and over time our collection grew. Of course, when the Betamax style VCRs went out of commission, so did our tape collection. It was bye-bye to such classics as "Fatal Attraction", "Desperately Seeking Susan" and the "Friday the Thirteenth" series. I was crushed, determined to replace them all in an updated format.

Enter the VHS VCR. When we bought our first VHS format machine, I felt like we had finally entered the 1980's. Suddenly, every video at the video store was compatible with my machine. We also started buying more movies (like I said, my husband was a real movie fanatic) and we rejoined the tape club. I also developed a penchant for recording television shows-- my favorites were old sitcoms. I even painstakingly created a tape of classic Christmas episodes, thinking that I'd own them forever.

In my basement I stored a big plastic bin filled with our videotapes. Exercise videos like "Callanetics" and "Cindy Crawford's Shape Your Body Workout". Movies like "E.T." and "Purple Rain". I bought "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory" for my son and I treated myself to the colorized version of my longtime favorite holiday movie, "It's a Wonderful Life". I even joined a video club that specialized in television series-- so I owned some "I Love Lucy", "The Lucy Show" and "Bewitched" episodes. It was exhilarating to imagine that this time I really would own these movies and television shows forever.

So what happened next? The DVD player was introduced. Now let me tell you, I resisted buying a DVD player for many years. I went into it kicking and screaming. Why? Because it outraged me that every time I thought I had my video collection intact, some new format would come along and make my stuff seemingly obsolete. So I resisted and resisted and then one day my VCR stopped working, so I had to make a decision. By now VCRs were dirt cheap-- I saw one at a discount store for under $40-- but then I saw that DVD players were relatively cheap (under $100) as well. So I gave in and bought a DVD player. Oh, don't worry, I bought the $40 VCR, too-- I couldn't let my video collection go to waste, but I knew it was only a matter of time. Sure enough, the cheapy VCR broke. My tape collection sits untouched in the basement.

So today, the DVD craze is huge. Because so much material can be condensed on to one disc, all of the sudden movie are being reissued with extra feature and bloopers and entire television series are available as DVD boxed sets. It's insane. I joined another club-- this one for DVD's-- to get a jumpstart on my collection. To date I own about fifteen movies (like "Fatal Attraction", which I have purchased in a third and final format, "American Beauty" and "Meet the Parents") and about ten DVD's for my children (kid friendly stuff like "Dora the Explorer" and "Finding Nemo"). Being a classic TV buff, I am intrigued by the TV series boxed sets. I'd love to own the entire "Sex and the City" series and to replenish my "I Love Lucy" and "Bewitched" collection. But then I start to wonder, how many of these movies and shows can I really watch over and over again? Don't I need to go outside and get some fresh air once in a while?

So I've decide to mull it over a while longer. I may very well just go out and spend the hundreds of dollars it would take to replace my beloved movie collection. Or I may just wait it out. It's been a couple of years-- and something tells me a new format may be out on the horizon.